The explosion made a disappointingly small noise, for the dog's integument was simply not as tough as that of the dummies they had practiced on. Flesh, skin, blood, and bone were scattered, however, and Trevize felt his stomach heave.
The dogs started back, some having been bombarded with uncomfortably warm fragments. That was only a momentary hesitation, however. They crowded against each other suddenly, in order to eat what had been provided. Trevize felt his sickness increase. He was not frightening them; he was feeding them. At that rate, they would never leave. In fact, the smell of fresh blood and warm meat would attract still more dogs, and perhaps other smaller predators as well.
A voice called out, "Trevize. What-"
Trevize looked outward. Bliss and Pelorat had emerged from the ruins. Bliss had stopped short, her arms thrown out to keep Pelorat back. She stared at the dogs. The situation was obvious and clear. She had to ask nothing.
Trevize shouted, "I tried to drive them off without involving you and Janov. Can you hold them off?"
"Barely," said Bliss, not shouting, so that Trevize had trouble hearing her even though the dogs' snarling had quieted as though a soothing soundabsorbent blanket had been thrown over them.
Bliss said, "There are too many of them, and I am not familiar with their pattern of neuronic activity. We have no such savage things on Gaia."
"Or on Terminus. Or on any civilized world," shouted Trevize. "I'll shoot as many of them as I can and you try to handle the rest. A smaller number will give you less trouble."
"No, Trevize. Shooting them will just attract others. Stay behind me, Pel. There's no way you can protect me. Trevize, your other weapon."
"The neuronic whip?"
"Yes. That produces pain. Low power. Low power!"
"Are you afraid of hurting them?" called out Trevize in anger. "Is this a time to consider the sacredness of life?"
"I'm considering Pel's. Also mine. Do as I say. Low power, and shoot at one of the dogs. I can't hold them much longer."
The dogs had drifted away from the tree and had surrounded Bliss and Pelorat, who stood with their backs to a crumbling wall. The dogs nearest the two made hesitant attempts to come closer still, whining a bit as though trying to puzzle out what it was that held them off when they could sense nothing that would do it. Some tried uselessly to scramble up the wall and attack from behind.
Trevize's hand was trembling as he adjusted the neuronic whip to low power. The neuronic whip used much less energy than the blaster did, and a single power-cartridge could produce hundreds of whip-like strokes but, come to think of it, he didn't remember when he had last charged this weapon, either.
It was not so important to aim the whip. Since conserving energy was not as critical, he could use it in a sweep across the mass of dogs. That was the traditional method of controlling crowds that showed signs of turning dangerous.
However, he followed Bliss's suggestion. He aimed at one dog and fired. The dog fell over, its legs twitching. It emitted loud, high-pitched squeals.
The other dogs backed away from the stricken beast, ears flattening backward against their heads. Then, squealing in their turn, they turned and left, at first slowly, then more rapidly, and finally, at a full race. The dog who had been hit, scrambled painfully to its legs, and limped away whimpering, much the last of them.
The noise vanished in the distance, and Bliss said, "We had better get into the ship. They will come back. Or others will."
Trevize thought that never before had he manipulated the ship's entry mechanism so rapidly. And it was possible he might never do so again.
38.
NIGHT HAD fallen before Trevize felt something approaching the normal. The' small patch of syntho-skin on the scrape on his hand had soothed the physical pain, but there was a scrape on his psyche for which soothing was not so easy. It was not the mere exposure to danger. He could react to that as well as any ordinarily brave person might. It was the totally unlooked-for direction from which the danger had come. It was the feeling of the ridiculous. How would it look if people were to find out he had been treed by snarling dogs? It would scarcely be worse if he had been put to flight by the whirring of angry canaries.
For hours, he kept listening for a new attack on the part of the dogs, for ths, sound of howls, for the scratch of claws against the outer hull.
Pelorat, by comparison, seemed quite cool. "There was no question in my mind, old chap, that Bliss would handle it, but I must say you fired the weapon well."
Trevize shrugged. He was in no mood to discuss the matter.
Pelorat was holding his library-the one compact disc on which his lifetime of research into myths and legends were stored-and with it he retreated into his bedroom where he kept his small reader.
He seemed quite pleased with himself. Trevize noticed that but didn't follow it up. Time for that later when his mind wasn't quite as taken up with dogs.
Bliss said, rather tentatively, when the two were alone, "I presume you were taken by surprise."
"Quite," said Trevize gloomily. "Who would think that at the sight of a dog-a dog-I should run for my life."
"Twenty thousand years without men and it would not be quite a dog. Those beasts must now be the dominant large predators."
Trevize nodded. "I figured that out while I was sitting on the tree bramch being a dominated prey. You were certainly right about an unbalanced ecology."
"Unbalanced, certainly, from the human standpoint-but considering how efficiently the dogs seem to be going about their business, I wonder if Pel may be right in his suggestion that the ecology could balance itself, with various environmental niches being filled by evolving variations of the relatively few species that were once brought to the world."